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ST LOUIS. 





2^}r^7 



PHIIiADELPHIA: 

J. B. LTPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1892. 



ST LOUIS, 



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PHIT. auelphia: 

J. B. LrPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1892. 



Vu,> 



Copyright, 1892, b}' J. B. Lippincott' Company, 







ST LOUIS. 



St Louis, lifth city of the United States in 
population, the commercial metropolis of the Mis- 
sissippi valley, and principal city of the state of 
Missouri, is situated on the west bank of the 
Mississippi River, 21 miles S. of the mouth of the 
Missouri, and by rail 1108 WSW. of New York, 
2434 E. of San Francisco, and 696 N. of New 
Orleans. On February 15, 1764, Pierre Laclede 
Liguest, head of the Louisiana Fur Company, 
established a trading-post on the present site of 
St Louis, giving it the name which it still bears 
in honour of Louis IX. of France. In 1768 the 
Spaniards took formal possession of Upper Louis- 
iana, but the settlement was governed by a French 
captain, St Ange de Bellerive, until 1770, when 
Don Pedro Piernas was made lieutenant-governor 
and military commandant, with headquarters at 
St Louis. In 1800 the village again became a part 
of the French possessions, and in 1803 passed into 
the hands of the United States. The population 
of the settlement in 1799 was 795; in 1810, (me 
year after the town was incorporated, it had 
increased to 1400, in 1820 to 4928, and in 1840 to 
16,469. Then began the great growth of the city^ 
In 1844 the population was 34,140 ; in 1850, 74.439; 
in 1870, 310,864 ; and in 1890, 451,770. 

St Louis is built upon three gently sloping ter- 
races, the summit of the third being 200 feet above 
and 4 miles W. of the river. Beyond this point foi- 
miles the country is almost perfectly level. The 
city has a river frontage of 19 miles; its greatest 
width is 6-62 miles, audits area 62i sq. m. The 
streets in the old part of the city are narrow, but 
all those west of Third street, three 1 docks from 
the river, are broad and straight. St Louis has 



4 ST LOUIS. 

371 -75 miles of paved street:* and 80 "22 miles of 
paved alleys. The sewerage system is excellent. 
There is no surface drainage, and the length of 
public and private sewers is 320-86 miles. The 
streets are sprinkled three times daily by the city 
government, and 10,000,000 gallons of water are 
used each day for this purpose. The water-supply 
is taken from the Mississippi River at Bissel's 
l^oint, north of the city. The water-works cost 
$8,000,000, and have 'a capacity of 50,000,000 
gallons daily. In 1891 an extension was in course 
of construction at an estimated cost of |4,000,000, 
to double the capacity. There are 214 '36 miles of 
street railway in St Louis, of which the motive- 
power on 116 "61 is electricity, on 6r50 cable, and 
36-70 horse. The city is lighted entirely by elec- 
tricity. 

The seventeen parks of St Louis contain 
2268-30 acres. The largest is Forest Park, in 
the western part of the city, containing 1371-94 
acres. Tower Grove Park, which, with the 
botanical garden, was given to the city hy the 
philanthropist Henry Shaw, contains 266-76 acres, 
and is one of the most beautiful in the Avorld. 

The principal public buildings are the Four 
Courts, court-house, city hospital, insane asylum, 
and women's hospital, the custom-house and post- 
office, which cost over 15,000,000, the Merchants' 
Exchange, Exposition Building, and the Crow 
Museum of Fine Arts. A new city liall Avas build- 
ing in 1891 at Washington Park at a cost of over 
$1,500,000. The Exposition is one of the features 
of St Louis. It is open for forty days every autumn. 
The building covers two blocks and cost' $900,000. 
The Mercantile Library Building (68,000 vols. ) is 
a handsome structure, and so too is the new Public 
School Library Building (75,000). 

The city owns 109 school Imildings and 69 kinder- 
garten structures, and the school property is valued 
at $3,734,672. The number of pupils in 1890 was 
58,316, and teachers 1 1 54. The schools are governed 
by a president and board of directors elected by 
the people. The expenditures for the public schools 
average $1 ,000,000 annually. There are 90 parochial 
schools, 64 of them Roman Catholic, 23 Lutheran, 
and 3 Hebrew. The Washington and St Louis 
universities, and the Christian Brothers and Con- 
cordia colleges are the leading advanced educational 
institutions; but there are numerous acadendes and 
colleges of lower grade, liesides two law schools, 
nine uw^dical colleges, a school for inuse;s, a school 



ST LOUIS. 6 

of midwifeiy, and a college of pliariiiacy. St Louis 
contains 284 churches, representing almost every 
Christian denomination, and the value of church 
jn-operty is appraised at $6,700,000. There are Hve 
English and four German daily newspapers. 

Eighteen raili-oads enter St Louis, the terminus 
of all being the new Union Depot (1874-92). The 
Mississippi at St Louis is spanned l>y two bridges. 
The older of these, the Eads, was opened for traffic 
4th July 1874, and cost $6,536,730. It consists of 
three spans, the central being 520 feet in the clear, 
and the two side spans 502 feet each. It is a 
railroad, foot, and wagon bridge, and connects with 
the Union Depot by a tunnel one mile long under 
the city. The Merchajits' Bridge, a railroad bridge, 
was commenced January 24, 1889, and was com- 
pleted May 3, 1890. It is constructed of steel, and 
is 2420 feet long, including approaches. 

During 1890, 10,633,021 tons of freight were 
received in St Louis by rail and river, and 5,872,712 
tons shipped. The total bank clearings of the 
same year were $1,118,573,210. The receipts of 
grain aggregated 77,795,232 bushels, and of cotton 
587, 187 l)ales. St Louis is an important manufactur- 
ing city. In tobacco it leads the world, the product 
in 1890 amounting to 52,000,000 pounds. The beer 
production was 58,491,814 gallons, and the value 
of l>oots and shoes manufactured was $7,000,000. 
Its dry-goods trade in 1890 amounted to $35,000,000, 
hardware $14,000,000, groceries $75,000,000, and 
boots and shoes $21,000,000. 

In 1875 St Louis was separated from the county 
of St Louis and given an independent government 
of its own. The mayor and municipal assembly 
constitute the governing power. The bonded debt 
of the city at the close of the iiscal year ending 
April 13, 1891, was $21,673,100. The payment of 
this debt is provided for by a sinking fund. The 
receipts for the same fiscal year were $10,834,962 ; 
expenditures $8,555,240. The total assessed value 
of real estate in 1891 was $252,031,820. See Billon, 
Annalf; of St Louis in its EarJij Days ( 1887 ). 



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